The art of Jodie Schmidt

How to Finish a Custom Art Piece (or any art for that matter)

Last week I posted about a custom art portrait I have been working on for my neighbor. It is a group portrait and has it ever been challenging! It is like painting three separate paintings rather than just one painting. What I didn’t share in last week’s post was how difficult it has been to finish this project, which I feel has been dragging. Although the project started out to be deceptively simple, with the colors and the drawing coming together in a few days, once I got to the smaller version of the painting, the trouble began.

I discovered that working small on a 5 x 7 canvas was extremely challenging. I am used to working on medium sized canvases of about a 9 x 12 size and using large brushes, either a one inch flat or a 2 inch bright. For this project, I have had to use tiny brushes and it has made it take all the longer to complete. Also, working in acrylic rather than oil has been really difficult because the paint keeps drying faster than I would like and I have to keep squeezing out more of it and spritzing it with water or adding slow dry medium to the paint. When the paint dries too fast, I get really hard edges which aren’t good. I’m worried that this project might fall into the realm of being overworked if I am not careful, but I want both the client and myself to be happy. So far, neither of us are. I’ve set a deadline for myself and I hope that works! Yesterday I painted out the middle person’s face in frustration because the proportions were off and the paint values seemed to have been too dark. So I am starting from scratch with the middle figure’s face. I re-measured the head and drew a new oval and repainted the whole in flesh tone.

In an effort to finish this painting by the deadline, I have been scheduling in time to work on it every week, and have been taking pictures of it after each painting session to make sure that it is really progressing and not just getting overworked. When will I know if the painting is really completed? I looked up an article on ThoughtCo. to try and get some more perspective on this subject. According to the author, Marion Boddy-Evans, the answer to when a painting is done is as individual as each artist who completes the work, based on their individual skills, and their vision for the work. Source: Boddy-Evans, M. (2017). How Long Should it Take to Finish a Painting?ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/duration-to-finish-a-painting-2578835. For me, it will be a difficult tightrope between not finishing it and over working it.